UNSW events. Faber's birthday, weird books and Hooper's award tally

The University of NSW is redeveloping its creative writing course under Stephen Muecke, who was previously at UTS. As part of the expansion, Muecke and one of his PhD students, Sunil Badami, have started a program of events on the Kensington campus for students and the public.

A free seminar series (with catering and bookselling), to be held at 6pm on the second Thursday of each month during semester, began this week with Andrew Croome, the author of the recently published novel Document Z, which won last year's Vogel Award. The next seminar will feature Tom Keneally in conversation with critic Geordie Williamson on October 8. David Malouf has agreed to speak in April. See the events calendar at unsw.edu.au for details.

HAPPY 80TH, FABER
To celebrate its 80th anniversary, the British publishing house of Faber & Faber is reissuing the selected work of six poets as beautiful hardcovers, featuring black-and-white cover art by six British illustrators. The poems of W.H. Auden are chosen by John Fuller, those of Sylvia Plath by Ted Hughes, those of Ted Hughes by Simon Armitage, John Betjeman by Hugo Williams, W.B. Yeats by Seamus Heaney and T.S. Eliot by himself. Eliot was, of course, one of Faber's first authors and a company director for more than 40 years. The books go on sale here on September 28 (Allen & Unwin, $24.99 each).

The anniversary publications include the "Faber Firsts", 10 republished paperbacks of debut novels which are now famous, including Bliss by Peter Carey, A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro, Cover Her Face by P.D. James and The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi. The books' new covers echo the distinctive eras of Faber design. That story is told in another richly illustrated book, Eighty Years of Book Cover Design, by Joseph Connolly.

As well as showing the evolution of Faber covers through examples (pictorial jackets had only recently replaced plain paper when Faber was launched), the book tells the company history with tidbits such as, "There never was a second Faber -- the second Faber of Faber & Faber was no more than a whimsy, an airy caprice, a deft and harmonious sleight of hand."

WEIRD AND WONDERFUL
The online second-hand bookseller AbeBooks has started a "weird book room", which catalogues "crazy cookbooks, unusual animal books, how-to books that will teach skills you never knew you needed, books about hilarious hobbies, and books about every strange aspect of life you could possibly imagine and a few things you can't imagine". Among the first offerings are Ductigami: The Art of the Tape by Joe Wilson (learn how to turn duct tape into a wallet, a barbecue apron, a lunchbox, a tool belt and other essentials); The Stray Shopping Carts of North America: A Guide to Field Identification by Julian Montague; How to Avoid Huge Ships by Captain John W. Trimmer; Paint It Black: A Guide to Gothic Homemaking by Voltaire (presumably not that Voltaire), and Old Tractors and the Men Who Love Them by Roger Welsch. Christmas presents for anyone you know?

CROWDED MANTLEPIECE
Chloe Hooper must be declared the winner among literary award winners this year, with a tally of seven prizes so far. Last week her book The Tall Man: Death and Life on Palm Island won the Queensland Premier's Literary Award for nonfiction -- its third premier's award after earlier wins in NSW and Victoria. This was, perhaps, the most significant, as the book's victim, Cameron Doomadgee, died in ugly circumstances in a Queensland police station.

Hooper's diverse awards also include the inaugural John Button prize for writing on political and public policy, the true-crime prizes at the Ned Kelly and Davitt awards and the Australian Book Industry nonfiction prize. She is also shortlisted for the Prime Minister's Literary Award for nonfiction, announced yesterday.